Microsoft: The Story

Paul Allen and Bill Gates
History
Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1975, beat the hands together and founded a company: Microsoft was born. The first product they made was a Basic interpreter which could be used for several computers. In 1980 they received the order from IBM for a driver to register for the IBM PC. They had no driver, and bought one from another company, namely QDOS. Microsoft changed the name to MS-DOS and gave it to IBM. Microsoft and IBM then began working on a proprietary operating system. It would be icons and a mouse pointer. They conflict, however, the palsy, and made their own operating system: Microsoft released Windows, and IBM did with OS / 2 Warp at this time. Microsoft won the battle and broke through with Windows. Later, they also made Office. Microsoft came in a very dominant position, and had (has) a near-monopoly in the OS market. The competition was not happy with this monopoly, it is very difficult to compete against a giant. In 2001 they were fined by the EU, because of the violation of the competing rights.
Marketing
Microsoft has a very public-friendly marketing. Link them to each product once the name of their company, which is a very big reputation yields. They provide you with software to schools and students, making them even more distribute their software.
Products
Microsoft offers many products.
- Software:
- The OS (operating system) Windows . On January 29, 2007 was announced a new version of Windows Vista.
- The office suite Microsoft Office . The latest version, Office 2007, was launched along with Windows Vista
- The encyclopedia Microsoft Encarta
- The Instant Messaging System Windows Live Messenger . This was formerly MSN Messenger.
- The browser Microsoft Internet Explorer . Here’s just released a new version, IE7.
- The audio and video player Windows Media Player . Here too recently a new version of it: WMP 11
- The e-mail program Outlook Express
- Hardware:
- Mice
- Keyboards
- The media player Zune
- The Gaming Xbox and Xbox 360
- Online Applications:
- The e-mail service Hotmail. There’s also a news version of Windows Live Mail. Due to unknown, the name will come back into Windows Live Hotmail.
- The search engine Windows Live Search (formerly MSN Search)
- The portal Windows Live